Lessons In Wardrobe Management

Well, it been over a year since we started our blog. It’s given Flo and I a lot of worthwhile experiences and friendships. However, there is a dark side to this blogging malarkey…

I definitely have some kind of addiction to clothes shopping. I love the buzz of finding gems – the thrill of the chase. It doesn’t matter if I’m on my own or with friends and family, I cannot help myself. Starting the blog seemed to remove the part of my brain that asked the question, ‘Do you need that?’. Now, every purchase could be justified with, ‘It’s for the blog’. What’s worse is that it wouldn’t just be me saying it: my mum, my sister, my husband and my friends have all uttered those terrible words at some point.

I’ve never been in debt or dipped into my overdraft but my spending started to worry me at the end of 2016. I used to be a serious comfort eater in my teens – I’d eat excessively to celebrate great moments and I’d also binge to drown my sorrows. I went through the great joy of munching to feeling stuffed, nauseous and guilty afterwards. I managed to work on this at uni and it isn’t an issue any more. Towards the end of last year, I began to realise that my shopping was following a similar cycle of euphoria and guilt. Neither my eating nor my shopping hurt anyone, I was still healthy, working and in the black. The issue with both of these behaviours was that neither made me happy. I had to make a change – I’d done it before and I could do it again!

I made myself three promises:

Buy less and do more

Make your wardrobe more user-friendly

Wear more of your clothes

With these promises in mind, I got to work on my clothes. First of all, I removed anything very old or overly worn. I then took out anything that really didn’t fit or that I didn’t actually like (tastes change a fair bit over ten years). I split these into a pile for selling and a pile for charity.

Once all that was done, I gathered all the clothing that had been strewn around our flat. This is where I apologise to my better half for turning our entire flat into my walk-in wardrobe. I had things hanging on various doors, draped over chairs and in piles on the floor. It was amazing to see how much space all my stuff had taken up.

The final step was organizing what I had. Here’s what it all looks like now.

The Big Rail

We bought another rail to go in the study so that I could actually move my clothes around. Before we got it, my clothes were so jam-packed that I could barely see what I had. This rail is for all of my reproduction and high street dresses. I arranged them by brand because it feels right for me.

The Little Rail

This was actually my husband’s idea and I’m so glad he came up with it. All my skirts were previously crammed into our wardrobe but now I can easily see what I have and pick them out.

I store all of my coats here – I could easily have another rail for coats and jackets though.

We also replaced all my hangers to thin velvet ones to maximise space and keep things neat. I’m also making sure I put my things away as soon as I’ve got changes so I don’t end up having to sort through piles of clothes at the end of each week.

There you have it! I know that this isn’t a cure-all and that I’ll still buy things but now that I can see what I have, I can use and appreciate more of my wardrobe.

How do you organise your wardrobe? What works well for you? Do let us know!